These were cut on the mountain slopes north, south, east and
west, and sent down the "chutes" into the Lake. Where the ground was
level great wagons, drawn by ten, sixteen, twenty oxen, hauled the
logs to the shore, where they were dumped into the water. Here they
were confined in "booms," consisting of a number of long, thin poles
fastened together at the ends with chains, which completely encircled
a "raft" of logs arranged in the form of a V. The raft was then
attached, by strong cables, to a steamer and towed to Glenbrook, where
the mills were so located that the logs were drawn up from the Lake
directly upon the saw-carriages. The size of some of the rafts may be
imagined when it is known that they yielded from 250,000 to 300,000
feet of lumber.
The principal vessel for this purpose at the time I first visited Lake
Tahoe in 1881 was an iron tug, called the _Meteor_. It was built
in 1876 at Wilmington, Delaware, by Harlan, Hollingsworth & Co., then
taken apart, shipped by rail to Carson City and hauled by teams to
Lake Tahoe. It was a propeller, eighty feet long and ten feet beam,
and cost $18,000.
The first store erected in Glenbrook was placed on piles over the
water.
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